Sunday, February 5, 2017

Happiness Equation – How to be Happy

Happiness may be expressed as degree to which you can fulfill your desires.

In a nutshell:

Happiness is the ratio of Desires Fulfilled/Total Number of Desires

Have a look at the “Happiness Equation” below:

Number of Desires Fulfilled

Happiness = --------------------------------------

Total Number of Desires

We can increase our happiness by either:

1. Increasing the Numerator (Fulfilling Your Existing Desires)

Or

2. Decreasing the Denominator (Decreasing the Desires in Your Mind)

The second option is easier.

How do you achieve this...?

How do you decrease your desires...?

It is simple.

Here is a “self help” article I wrote a few years ago on “Desire Management”

HOW TO MANAGE YOUR DESIRESPhilosophical Musings ByVIKRAM KARVEDESIRES and HAPPINESSOver the years I have realized that the Two Main Reasons for Unhappiness are:1. Dissatisfaction caused by unfulfilled desiresand

2. Anxiety that you will not be able to fulfill your desires in the future

There is a close connection betweenhappiness anddesire-satisfaction.

When you get what you want you feel happy and when you do not get what you want you feel unhappy.

Happiness results from getting what you want(desire-satisfaction)

and

Unhappiness results from not getting what you want (desire-frustration)

Therefore, there are two strategies you can pursue with respect to any given desire:

1. You can either strive to fulfill the desire

or

2. You can try to eliminate the desire

No philosopher has better explored this than Epicurus, a Greek Philosopher of the Third Century BC.

This desire management strategy will help you scale down your desires to the basic minimum which can easily be satisfied.

Yes, you follow this this two phase desire management strategy:

1. Firstly, you scale down your desires to those desires which are feasible for you to fulfill

after doing that:

2. You satisfy those desires.

This will make you happy since fulfilling a desire creates happiness.

TYPES OF DESIRES

Epicurus distinguishes between 3 types of desires:

1. Natural and Necessary Desires

2. Unnatural and Unnecessary (or Vain and Empty) Desires

3. Natural but Non-necessary Desires

HOW TO DEAL WITH THE THREE TYPES OF DESIRES

Our tendency to happiness (or unhappiness) depends on how we tackle each of these three types of desires.

1. NATURAL and NECESSARY DESIRES

Examples of natural and necessary desires include the desires for food, shelter, health, sense of security and basic physical needs, cravings which will necessarily lead to greater pain if they are not fulfilled.

These basic desires are easy to satisfy yet difficult to eliminate since they are “hard-wired”into human beings naturally and create a sense of well-being when satisfied (eg. “Happiness begins at the stomach”)

Furthermore, natural and necessary desires are necessary for life, and these desires are naturally limited: that is, if one is hungry, it only takes a limited amount of food to fill the stomach, after which the desire is satisfied.

Epicurus says that you should try to satisfy natural and necessary desires.

2. VAIN and EMPTY DESIRES – UNNATURAL and UNNECESSARY DESIRES

Vain, unnatural and unnecessary desires include desires for excessivepower, wealth, fame, and other egoistic ambitions which have all the trappings of status and prestige.

Vain desires are difficult to satisfy, in part because they have no natural limit.

If one desires wealth or power, no matter how much one gets, it is always possible to get more, and the more one gets, the more one wants.

These desires are not natural to human beings, but inculcated by society and by false beliefs about what we need.

For example, we falsely believe that being very powerful or wealthy or famous will guarantee us happiness.

In actual fact, Opulence may attract thieves and other dangers, and Power and Fame may attract sycophants.

Yes, such vain desires, which are unnatural and unnecessary, are sure to put you into the spiral of unhappiness.

Epicurus says that such vain and empty desires should be eliminated.

3. NATURAL but NON-NECESSARY DESIRES

An example of a natural but non-necessary desire is the desire for luxury food.

Although food is needed for survival, one does not need rich expensive gourmet food to survive.

Thus, despite his hedonism, Epicurus advocates a surprisingly ascetic way of life.

Although you should not spurn extravagant foods if they happen to be available, becoming dependent on such luxury food (and other luxuries) ultimately leads to unhappiness.

These natural but non-necessary desires are those cravings that are not necessary for life, but give you great happiness.

However, should you become dependent on them, such desires can lead to great unhappiness if they are not fulfilled.

All stories in this blog are a work of fiction. Events, Places, Settings and Incidents narrated in the story are a figment of my imagination. The characters do not exist and are purely imaginary. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright Notice:

No part of this Blog may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Blog Author Vikram Karve who holds the copyright.

About Me

A creative person with a zest for
life, Vikram Karve is a retired Naval Officer turned full time writer. Educated
at IIT Delhi, IIT (BHU) Varanasi, The Lawrence School Lovedale and Bishops School
Pune, Vikram has published two books:COCKTAILa collection of fiction short stories about relationships
(2011) andAPPETITE FOR A STROLLa
book of Foodie Adventures (2008) and is currently working on his novel, writing short fiction and compiling his memoirs. An avid
blogger, he has written a number of fiction short stories, creative
non-fiction articles on a variety of topics including food, books, travel, philosophy, academics, technology, management, health, pet parenting, teaching stories, self help and art of living essays in magazines and journals and published a number of professional research papers and reviews and edited in-house magazines and journals for many years, before the advent
of blogging. Vikram has taught at a University as a Professor for 15 years and now teaches as a visiting faculty and devotes most of his time to
creative writing and blogging. Vikram Karve lives in Pune India with his family and muse -
his pet dog Sherry with whom he takes long walks thinking creative
thoughts.